In the inaugural episode of our podcast Critical Conditions, we discuss India’s uneasy place between the US and China, Trump’s tariff war, the fragility of democracy, the Supreme Court’s indulgence of executive power, the Houthis and the Red Sea, rumors about Venezuela and Greenland, and the surreal spectacle of Trumpism.
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Claire Berlinski: Hey, Dan. All right, so this is our inaugural episode of Critical Conditions.
Dan Perry: First of many, I'm sure.
Claire: We're gonna do this twice a week to start. Fifteen minutes maximum, in which, at the beginning of the week, we tell you what we're going to be watching this week. At the end of the week, we tell you how the week went.
Dan: So, should I start by saying what I'll be watching?
Claire: Yeah, tell me what's going on in India.
Dan: There's the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that began about 20 years ago as the Shanghai Five, which was really just sort of an opportunity for junkets involving Central Asia, Russia, and China. But of course, it's bloomed and blossomed into an effort to create a bipolar world where India currently finds itself in a somewhat undignified position—trying to deny that they're threatening to ally with China, which they really aren't going to do, and they can't do. But I was just on Indian television, NewsX World, and they are in a state of total agitation over the tariffs. I mean, it's insane, and they can't understand it, and they put me, because of my American accent, into the completely untenable position of having to explain Donald Trump. Now, what can I say other than… you don't want to be disrespectful, you know, in public for a billion people.
Claire: It's not possible to… it's not possible to game it out. There's no way of knowing what his mood is going to be like, and anticipating it. I think the thing to tell people, honestly, is the guy's out of his mind.
Dan: At the very least, at the very least, and let's be very polite, he doesn't appear to know what tariffs are. Like, he really thinks he's punishing India. He doesn't know the American consumer is, by and large, paying his tariffs. When he says this is revenue for the Americans, this is… not even stealth — it's an additional tax on the Americans.
Claire: Absolutely. But he is punishing India, too.
Dan Perry: He is taking his voters for fools. And I have to wonder how long they will indulge that. What is your view, Claire?
Claire: I think it's super dangerous, because Biden painstakingly courted India—as I've been arguing for years, the United States should. We need India in our camp. It's the best ally we're ever going to have against China if we can convince it to.
Dan: Remember that India runs a stupendous trade deficit with China. I think they import, like, 10 times more than they export to China, and that may only get worse, because China needs fewer raw materials, etc.
Claire: India has a long-standing policy of non-alignment, which in practice has meant alignment with Russia. And it's been a painstaking diplomatic process. And now, everyone in India who's been saying you can't trust the Americans is completely confirmed in that view. And we're even seeing talk about Xi and Modi having some fairly constructive conversations, as they put it, about their own border dispute. And if they manage to get that settled, then the motivation for India cooperating with us is even less. I wonder what's gonna happen.
Dan: It matters maybe a little bit that the G7, which India stupidly was not fully invited to join, is a club of democracies — or at least was, because America decided that doesn't matter. And maybe one day America decides it matters once more, and that becomes again what it was meant to be, and maybe it'll work better. Is that possible?
Claire: I don't know. If we no longer care about democracy, why aren't we trying to patch things up with China? Why on earth would we be antagonistic to China if we don't care about human rights and democracy anymore?
Dan: Well, because they still have a very cheap labor market that's eating our lunch from the perspective of the Rust Belt, and we don't trust them with theft of technology, basically, and national security issues. It's not about democracy.
Claire: I don't see why having a tense relationship with China and incessantly talking about a coming war in the Pacific is necessary if we don't care whether China is authoritarian.
Dan: It isn't “we.” It isn't you, and it isn't me, and it isn't even most American voters. It's just this singularity.
Claire: Well, the singularity could not be a singularity if a large number of American voters didn't want what he was selling.
Dan: They wanted some of what he was selling. I don't think they want to be thrown off healthcare rolls, have never-ending gun massacres, have hyperinflation, and have all this bad karma descending like the darkest of clouds upon our entire society.
Claire: I think a very significant number of Americans really did want to cut Europe loose. They don't mind if we leave NATO.
Dan: Wow. You know, let me ask you this, actually, and for real, I'm confused. Is the Supreme Court lemmings? Yes or no? So we know that they have declared that the president has immunity. Interesting. But they're not total idiots. The U.S. executive can't just do blanket tariffs on countries unless there's a national emergency. The U.S. proposed on so-called Liberation Day to do tariffs on pretty much every country on Earth. So the proposition there is that we have a national emergency vis-à-vis every other country. Honestly, in the annals of American history and jurisprudence and governance, there may have never been a dumber statement. Will the Supreme Court validate this, now that the federal court decision invalidating Trump's tariffs eventually, inevitably ends up with them?
Claire: It's a really interesting question, and I'll be very curious to see what they do, because so far, they have twisted themselves into wild pretzels of legal incoherence in order to give Trump everything he wants. And if they go along with the idea that Trump is responsible for setting tariffs, then they've completely charted their own course that has nothing to do with the Constitution. It’ll be very, very curious to see it.
Dan: Yeah, I see you smiling, which our listeners can’t, because it's audio only for now. But then you're smiling, I'm laughing, and here's a philosophical question. When something is so cataclysmic, do we just take refuge in humor?
Claire: Well, what else are we gonna do? It's psychologically unsustainable to react to this catastrophe—and Trump's presidency is a catastrophe—with the emotion it warrants 24 hours a day. It will be regarded as the great catastrophe of this century, at a minimum. I can't respond to it with the emotion it warrants 24 hours a day.
Dan: Decade, for sure. It would be exhausting. I have some relatives, in particular a brother, who does. I feel his pain, but I try to maintain perspective. Like you just said “of the century,” I'm insisting it's of the decade, and you're optimistic if you think nothing worse will happen. If I consider what might yet happen this century…
Claire: Whatever worse thing happens, we'll be able to trace it back to this period when the United States went off the rails. And anytime a hegemonic power falls out of the power system…
Dan: You know, there's a Jewish concept called chafetz chayim in Hebrew — “lust for life.” Organisms, countries, societies, political polities — they have a self-correction mechanism. And at the very last minute, but not much before, they will do the right thing, usually.
Claire: Possibly. I do think the pendulum will swing back. I mean, Trump is going to make such a mess of things that people are going to want him out of power, and there will be an effort to put us back on track. But the damage he has done — a lot of it is not easy to undo. He's destroyed our state capacity.
Dan Perry: For sure.
Claire Berlinski: Just putting the state back together again is a project that would take… oh, God.
Dan Perry: When you look at the firings of people involved in research and medicine and public health — even the IRS, I mean, at every level, including government revenue that they should care about — it is just scorched earth. It's incredible. It really is. I can tell you I spent a lot of time — well, you live in Europe, and I do a lot of traveling in Europe. They're watching in stupefaction. I spoke to some government circles involved in the sycophancy circus at the White House visit by the Europeans two weeks ago. And they’re like: “Okay, so, you know, we gotta say nice things.” This is what diplomacy's come to. They need to say nice things, they need to bring a nice gift, and presumably praise Melania — or not, depending on how he feels about Melania that day.
Claire: A historical circus.
Dan: The level to which everyone has been infantilized — it's stunning. Anyway, that's one thing I'll be watching this week, in Asia, where a lot of the news is coming from. But of course in the U.S., just never-ending chaos, with the attacks on the Fed now. The Federal Reserve! You’d think they care about the dollar. Maybe they want to tank the dollar.
Claire: Exactly.
Dan: A weak dollar is better for trade? Maybe. Who knows.
Claire: Or devalue the dollar to the point that we can escape from the debt.
Dan: That almost seems too clever. But you know, Napoleon wanted lucky generals? We have a lucky president, because no matter how dopey, immoral, and ill-thought-out things seem, it always looks like maybe there's a method to the madness. Who knows, maybe they want to devalue the dollar by firing a black woman governor of the Fed. I mean, it's win-win: you throw red meat to your base, and maybe you improve the trade deficit with a few countries.
Claire: And the Trumps have gone heavily on crypto.
Dan: Yes, of course — who needs fiat currencies when they've gone heavy on crypto?
Claire: Exactly.
Dan: One other thing I'll be watching this week, because I happen to be in Tel Aviv, is that Israel just took out the Prime Minister and a bunch of government ministers of the Houthis. Now, that gets misreported as Yemen. This isn’t Yemen. It's not the recognized government of Yemen. But it is, in effect, the government of Yemen. Anyway, the Houthis are very serious troublemakers. They've not been decapitated — it's not Abdel Malik al-Houthi, who's the main guy — but it's big. They have Iranian missiles. They fire them one by one, unlike the Iranians, so they're easier to zap out of the sky. But I think we're bracing for another possible escalation in the Red Sea. That could impact a lot of things, including maritime trade up to the Suez Canal, so Egypt's involved. The Middle East isn’t going anywhere. And of course, the potential incursion in Gaza.
Claire: What is the trade situation right now in the Red Sea?
Dan: Most of the pre-existing traffic has returned. The Houthis only attack Israeli-related vessels now, and fire at Israel. They're no longer firing at American and Western vessels, mostly — not fully, but mostly.
Claire: That's since our misbegotten effort when Pete Hegseth put our war plans on Signal? That was actually a success?
Dan: Yes, exactly — since that misbegotten episode. That’s what I meant by lucky general/lucky president. It looks like they sold Israel down the river, by the way. Because they forgot to ask the Houthis to stop attacking Israel. They just said, stop attacking Western ships. But yeah, that counts as a success. Even though, you know, Hegseth definitely made progress in his campaign to be labeled Bonehead of the Year. But the mercantile trade up the Suez Canal is roughly back. Insurance premiums are up. Some people are losing money, some are making money. And again, who knows — maybe the Trumps are invested in some Bermuda-based reinsurance companies.
Claire: So you're watching that. I'm watching to see if we're going to invade Venezuela. What do you think?
Dan: I'm gonna go with no — unless something new comes out in the Epstein files.
Claire: Did you see that Denmark accused us of trying to destabilize Greenland?
Dan: One of the things I was asked on the Indian show was, is the U.S. serious about expansionism? What's up with Greenland and the Panama Canal? And Canada, in particular. A year ago, if you’d said the U.S. is an expansionist power — sure, the U.S. had business-y designs in Greenland for a while, but not like this. And refusing to rule out that it’ll be by force??
Claire: I know, I know.
Dan: I think what happens is that the universe prices in that it’s just probably nonsense. It’s meant to entertain. And despite what I just said about the Epstein files sounding cynical, it isn’t completely cynicism — because cynicism, by definition, isn’t necessarily true.
Claire: It's just spectacle. Why are we trying to destabilize the Danes?
Dan: Because the Europeans are wimps. The MAGA cult likes to upset them for the same reason Trump capitalizes nouns: to upset me. Whoever isn’t them needs to be rattled. Always enraged by some new outrage, which makes the previous one forgotten. Never-ending.
Claire: I noticed this week we were swept by rumors that Trump was dead, which is a surefire marker of authoritarian states: everyone suddenly starts passing rumors the ruler is dead. And it always turns out not to be true. They never die, these guys.
Dan: I have to say, though, Trump is sui generis.
Claire: He does look poorly.
Dan: Yeah, he looks terrible — but has for decades. I think he's one of these leaders who's not replaceable.
Claire: No, he's not.
Dan: Like, you know, the Houthi Prime Minister is replaceable. But Abdel Malik Houthi isn’t. I don't want to fall into the trap of Hitler comparisons, so let's just say Mussolini. Mussolini was not replaceable. When they strung him up, that was the end of Italian fascism, basically.
Claire: Sometimes they can be replaced by their wives. Melania doesn’t really qualify.
Dan: Nor his genius “stable genius” sons, probably. Here’s a prediction.
Claire: Ooh, what’s that?
Dan: I think, if — heaven forfend — Trump were to meet his maker, and we were to have, ridiculously enough, President Vance? He’d become normal before our eyes.
Claire: And so would Congress. They’d remember that they have co-equal power — if not greater power, in fact. And we would return to normal politics. And then Vance would be booted out of office.
Dan: He’d still be Republican, he still wouldn’t know that people with guns kill people. I’m not saying he’d figure that out.
Claire: When he said that World War II ended with a negotiated settlement — was he just glitching, or did he really not know?
Dan: I think he really didn’t.
Claire: How is that possible? He spent several years in the military. He went to Yale. How is it possible?
Dan: It’s because Trump has normalized bullshit, if you’ll forgive me. Nothing matters anymore. It used to be that if you said something really dumb, it carried a political cost. Even if your base was the lesser-educated sociodemographic, they didn’t want their leader to be that way.
Claire: Is it possible that the Vice President has never seen a World War II movie?
Dan: Seems highly unlikely. Maybe he was misrepresenting the denouement post-Hitler suicide, or Nuremberg. Somehow, in his confusion — the same way he thought Zelensky never said thank you. He just got it wrong.
Claire: It just makes you think he’s in that position. Well, we said we’re not gonna swear. I know. All right, so that was about fifteen minutes. Does it seem like a manageable amount of time?
Dan: Not only manageable, but a fun amount of time.
Claire: Okay, so let's just knock it off right here, and say goodbye to our listeners.
Dan: Goodbye, our listeners, and thank you, Claire. Always a pleasure.
